


burning stone

by qBox



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 09:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qBox/pseuds/qBox
Summary: Whether Thor notices the way their bodies cause the world to set ablaze or not, Loki can’t be sure, doesn’t want to be sure - desperately does not want to know.“Thor,” he whispers, a plea without structure, without content. It’s definitely not that question, given that there is none.---Everything is the same and everything is different.





	burning stone

To Loki, there is fire and brimstone whenever they meet; palpable, unmistakable as fingers grip and tear at aching muscles, as they share kisses that are all teeth and desperate, helpless craving. Strong, heavy hands on slender hips brand bruises into pale skin that’ll no doubt remain there for days, hidden beneath silks and cottons and quietly creaking leather. A forceful array of pushes and shoves less than elegantly arrange them into position.

It’s loathsome to love such a base act this much, he reasons in what little clarity their heated haze allows him, and then the thought is gone, lost among sensations that they must have both been longing for. Thor’s hands running down to grip his knees, fervent kisses following the lines of his body to taste him, and oh, what a sight he is, with long hair falling around his face like gold, tresses stuck to the sweat already gathering at his forehead.

Loki wants and wants.

Thor always has been known to boast his proficiency in the bedroom, and Loki can’t say that after a thousand years either of their abilities are surprising, but it’s something different when they are together. Something _more_ , something hot and heady that runs to his mind and has him seeing galaxies where before was just the adorned ceiling and crimson drapes. Something like fire glows in his periphery. It’s the drag of skin against skin as they rut against each other, of the tongue exploring his every crevice as though they have never danced this way before.

They have, but in such secrecy it goes bitterly untold of even between them, instead sowing seeds of doubt regarding one another’s intentions. Even now he does not know why Thor allows this weakness between them, but Loki would never ask him to stop, especially not when Thor’s heavy hands and nimble tongue spread him open and trembling atop the bed’s crumpled sheets. His every touch is ember in Loki’s constantly frigid body, spreading under his skin and bringing new life to his lungs. The sparkle of electricity running through the bronze skin has him tense in momentary apprehension before it is as gone as his worry for it.

Whether Thor notices the way their bodies cause the world to set ablaze or not, Loki can’t be sure, doesn’t want to be sure - desperately does not want to know.

“Thor,” he whispers, a plea without structure, without content. It’s definitely not that question, given that there is none.

Thor’s response is but a muffled grunt, but then again, his mouth is hard at work, and Loki forgives the lack of eloquence faster than he expects to when the licks into him send familiar tingles through his spine not unlike the lightning itself. Valhalla might not ever welcome him like this, but for an endless second he swears he sees its hallowed halls.

The fire festers beneath his skin, alongside rough hands mixed with heartfelt kisses, the warmth of his brother’s body close to his own. _Finally_ , sighs muscles and heart and lungs alike, healing wounds torn open by distance and scorn, but he mutes the spirituality of it all and lets his body take him. Or, rather, Thor’s body, as he lifts Loki without much effort, fingers continuing where his mouth left off to kiss him crazy elsewhere.

“Thor,” again he whispers, the name a prayer on his lips but he can’t put words to exactly what for. Not now, not yet. Not ever.

Thor is swift about it, really. Efficient and yet more caring than he has any right to be, as if they don’t both need the tug and tear, the pain, the marks of their bitterness. It’s as if he searches for a more gentle pace and it’s not one Loki expects as he’s, still briskly, moulded to fit him.

Lifetimes ago, when they were children, people had called them joined at the hip, and now they truly are, again. It had always been an embarrassing amusement on Loki’s part to gaze upon his brother’s flustered face when the statement was made.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have amused himself. Perhaps it’s what drove them apart.

He wraps his legs closer around his brother’s strong back as spells and oil ease Thor’s return to the welcoming grip of his body, and then they are one, finally. Finally, Thor crowds him, a hand fisted into his hair as the other keeps the aching grip of his hips steady. Teeth meet teeth again as lips do the same, and it’s with a near snarl they break for air, for sanity.

Thor is always the same when they do this, as far as Loki lets himself recall - powerful and feral and much, much too warm. He’s the cause of the ember, the heat, and Loki doubts he is even aware as the roll of their bodies burns his insides. The sparks of their limbs pressed tightly together set flames more potent, more glorious than those of Surtur’s fiery halls inside his body, he’s sure.

He is burnt alive for their damnation, happily takes the punishment for two. And as he bites down into the bronze skin of his brother’s muscular shoulder, dragging white lines across his back with his nails, the flames turn liquid, hot tears dripping down his cheeks and hanging from wet lashes. They are good tears, but he hides them from Thor, who’d never understand how whole he feels when they are together – and _only_ then.

His mind drops all inhibitions, spinning up fantasies and lies as the weight of his brother presses him down into the bed, heavy but much too gentle, the force of his hips sending out stars before his eyes. It has slowed now from the furious rawness that Loki wishes for, the one he needs to empty his skull of all else, the one he’s longed for. Yet, it keeps his limbs and blood and heart alight nevertheless.

Thor’s touch is that of a caring lover.

For a moment, Loki pretends that is what they are.

A moment, before the truth begins to tear at his lies.

“I’m not made of glass,” he mutters as kisses softly pepper his skin, urging him on with hands and hips.

“No, you’re made of ice,” his brother jests, his first proper sentence since their lips had first locked, giving cause to this secretive tryst. “Cold and fickle as the heart of Jotunheim itself.”

Though his words should feel hurtful, and do sting somewhere within him, it’s the low chuckle in his voice that has him tremble. Exhausted. Exerted.

And all for Loki.

It becomes too much then, all at once, the care, the sharp blue gaze directed on his probably tear-streamed face, the oafish smile, and Loki pulls him closer, begging for discomfort to force him forget the overwhelming sentiment that threatens to bury and drown him. To melt the ice he is made of, reducing him into everything and nothing at his brother’s fingertips.

And Thor, smile melting away beneath a furrowed brow, allows him as much.

Their dance resumes, passionate as though were it still the first time they knew each other like this, violent enough to scrape lips and skin with fangs and claws. Like the beasts they are, Thor unwraps and untangles his every knotting muscle as hot blue flames tear through his body and limbs, plunging within him with the confidence that comes with expert knowledge of his partner’s body, with experience of it. And it hurts, in truth, but it’s a safe pain, a good pain - Thor is part of him, and they are one. It is all he has ever wished for, he tells himself as the world blues before his eyes, a smile upon his lips.

But it is not quite satisfaction he feels when Thor finally rolls off him with a grunt, when Loki's sweaty back aches from the exertion and his thighs and stomach itch from their drying spend. The thought of a lukewarm bath runs through his mind, something to reduce his core temperature to its normal state - something to stop the fervent drum of his heart.

No, the rushed and aching rut never satisfies - this he knows - but it is easier to take than slow and languid lovemaking. It leaves him wanting and craving more, but it’s easier to bear than the alternative. After all, the fire, though waning around them, so often spreads in between them, as well.

It is always quiet in the aftermath.

This is it then. They’re left in the silence between stone walls, the dying echoes of their tryst only imaginary, and Loki knows in soul and bone that the sanctuary of Thor’s chambers soon will cease to allow him that kindness. He rolls over to his side, sighs heavy in his lungs, when a thick arm wraps around his waist and pulls him back.

“Are you leaving so soon?”

Thor’s voice behind him is hesitant but bordering on whiplike.

“Doubtless you have better use of your time,” Loki says, trying to push the capturing arm off of his body, without much luck. Damned be Thor and his overpowered muscles. “As I have better use for mine. I’m sure you can imagine.”

He doesn’t, of course.

“You’re planning something,” Thor says, fingers digging into his waist as he held him tighter yet. There is venom in his voice. “Something nefarious.”

Probably. Loki has several ideas in the works, some that he’s been sowing the seeds of for years and years - but the immediate distrust is annoying, and steels his jaw. This is no time to be contentious, but what can Thor expect, for antagonising him like this.

“I’ll gladly send you notice of it once the deed has been done,” he answers as sickly sweet as he can muster. It's evidently not an amusing jest.

“How is it so hard to like you when I love you so, brother?” Thor mutters in his ear, a bitter snarl. Bitter because there are too many years of ruined bonds and promises between them to try defend their different points of view. Before, they would have fought, fists and words thrown heedlessly in the air, but perhaps it has become too tiring even for Thor to try. Loki forces a smile despite himself, despite his back being turned so it should be invisible to Thor. A part of him wishes they would fight.

“I suppose this is just where we have to agree to be,” he mumbles back, eyes still stinging from the smouldering coal their fire left therein. It’s the sole reason for them _to_ sting, he decides.

“If you could only lay aside your schemes and tricks, we could be more than just... this. You could be more than this.”

But he can't, can he? He has tried and failed, again and again, and come to the conclusion Thor refuses to wrap his stubborn mind around. To be Loki is to be the trickster, for eternity. Bathed in fire from birth to deaths upon deaths, a pyre that Thor has only ever fed, unwittingly, subconsciously. Loki shakes his head, sharply. He will not have this conversation, not in the aftermath of a meeting like theirs has been. His flaws are many, that he knows, but even a wicked man can grow tired of the reminder that he is.

“I’ll leave,” he warns but knows he won’t.

“Fine,” Thor mumbles and pulls him close, fingers in his hair, hand safely on his neck. “I just wish...”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, doesn’t need to, for Loki’s mind fills the silence with plenty enough variations. _I just wish I could trust you. I just wish you weren’t such trouble. I just wish you’d never been pushed upon me._

“I just wish you’d love me as I do you,” Thor says anyway, eventually, and Loki’s laugh surprises even himself. It’s a mirthless laugh in and of itself, nearly desperate as the words clog up his throat and leave him without any clever retort.

“I love you with all of my being, Thor,” he whispers in a rare bout of honesty, but he can sense Thor can’t find it in himself to believe him. It’s understandable really - over the span of their lives he has been given a multitude of reasons not to. In fact, he fully expects Thor to bring up all his failures as a prince of Asgard, as a friend, as a brother, a son. In fact, he steels himself for it, but nothing of the sort comes. Instead, Thor asks:

“Do you remember Mother’s shadow puppets? We were very young, then. She'd sit us down by the fireplace, tell us those mighty tales of yore. Sometimes Father would join.”

 _Of course I remember_ , he wants to scold, nose crinkling, but instead he lets out a weak and frankly embarrassing whine as Thor’s arms wrap around him and he folds into the embrace again, weak of will. He listens quietly as Thor recounts the tales more fascinating to him, of yonder and of yore, the ones he’d always ask her to repeat again and again, until the flow of words leisurely cease to a halt.

There is no more talk of leaving - there’s barely talk at all.

As they gaze into the flames caused by flint and steel dancing within the fireplace that seems a far cry from the one in their parents' chambers in Old Asgard, Loki nearly asks about the other flames. The damning ones, that have licked him in Thor’s presence since they were but children.

He opens his mouth at one point or several, but the question remains unspoken. There is no need to ask, he tells himself.

There is no need to know.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you supermuch to [ectothermal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectothermal) for the betareading, without which I would never have finally gotten myself to posting this old thing <3
> 
> It was written and finished shortly after ragnarök was released but doesn't take place directly after it, you know? Think eons in the future after multiple more mishaps between these two, if that wasn't clear haha


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